By Nicole
First off, mad props to M.Clement and Sars. Nothin' but love for youse guys.
Okay, so the show starts off with "last time, on Third Watch..." and there is a medley of scenes from the last few episodes, then it goes to "this week, on Third Watch..." and it shows some scenes from this show. Then the credits. Then commercials. I really wish this recap had been so easy, but it really wasn't.
So Yokas is brushing her teeth in her bathroom when Fred comes in and opens the medicine cabinet and gets some pills and leaves. The doorbell rings. It's another couple with their kids, picking up Yokas's kids to take them to school. As Yokas is helping her kids put their coats on and giving them their lunches, they ask where Dad is, and Yokas tells them that he isn't feeling well. Again. After the kids leave she walks over to the bedroom and Fred slams the door closed. Uh oh. Trouble in paradise.
Maggie is in her kitchen ordering something from a catalog and Ty comes in to have breakfast. Maggie is ordering a sexy V-neck dress. Oooohh, sexy mama. Ty thinks the dress is a little revealing. That's the point, Ty. Maggie tells Ty she is getting the dress for a date she has with Aiden, who is some guy she works with. Of course, Ty is not happy about this, but not as upset as he would be if she told him her date was with Sully. He asks his mom if she is dating Sully, and she gives him a look and ignores his question by walking out of the kitchen while telling him to put his cereal bowl in the dishwasher. Ty, if you keep bringing up the possibility of Sully and Maggie dating, all you are going to do is put the idea in their heads. If you don't want them going out, STOP TALKING ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME!
Joey is eating a bowl of Fruit Loops. How do I know they're Fruit Loops? Because the scene starts out with a gratuitously close shot of his bowl. I think the editors were trying to be all cool with the last scene with Ty eating cereal, and this scene starting with Joey eating cereal, and they could just merge the two scenes or something. Whatever. I just know that I really didn't need such a close look at colored cereal in milk. Kim is reading a letter from Joey's school that says that Joey will have half days all that week because of teacher/parent conferences. Joey tells Kim that Jimmy can go to his parent/teacher conference too that Thursday. Kim thanks Joey for telling her that, and then offers to take him to the movies after she picks him up from school that day. Joey asks if his dad can come too. Kim asks him why he wants his dad to come, and Joey tells her that he wants the two of them to get married again. Kim tells him that they both love him, but they can't live together. Joey does his best imitation of that little kid in The Sixth Sense whispering and says, "Divorce is a sin. You'll go to hell." Kim tells him that she looked into that and it isn't always true.
Yokas is washing dishes. Fred walks in and gets some coffee. They bicker about how he was too drunk to get it up last night. He complains that she is never around and they never talk. She tells him she would talk to him if he wasn't half tanked all the time. Fred's big comeback to this is, "Chicken 'n' egg, babe!" and tells her she is the one with the problem and storms off. week Fred will probably be getting a prescription for Viagra because he still won't admit he has a drinking problem.
Doc and Carlos are with a guy sitting on the sidewalk with a cell phone to his ear; he is having chest pains. If he keeps that cell phone up to his ear, he'll have a brain tumor to go with the heart attack. The guy tells them that he was in the middle of making some big deal when he got the chest pains. The owner of a store they're sitting by comes up to them and asks if they have to help the man right there, because they are blocking the entrance of his store. The guy with the chest pains pulls down the oxygen mask Doc put on him and tells the store owner that last year he spent over $10,000 in his store, so he can shove it. Meanwhile, this guy is still on his phone trying to close the deal. I don't know about you, but if I were on the other end of that call I would just tell the guy to hang up the freakin' phone and get help and call back after he gets rid of the chest pains. I seriously doubt this man's business is so important that he has to work through a heart attack to make sure the business gets done. What a ninny.
Bosco and Yokas are leaving some store and Bosco is going on about some girl who looks like Melanie Griffith and how you can bounce quarters off her and ride her like a palomino. Bosco, there is a little thing called TMI -- Too Much Information. Figure out what it is, then never give it out again. Yokas feels the same way, and Bosco tells her that she wants him to treat her like an equal, so he is talking to her like she is one of the guys. She asks him if he wants to hear about her sex life, then proceeds to tell him that last night Fred was too drunk to get it up and she is a little upset about it. Bosco is all disgusted and tells her that now he has a mental picture. Yokas is all, "No kidding?" I hate it when my friends tell me about their sex lives in detail because then I get a mental picture and I really don't want to picture anyone but myself having sex.
As they are leaving a coffee place to go back to their car, Ty is telling Sully about the sexy dress that Maggie ordered and how she has a date that weekend. Then he asks if Sully is dating his mother and Sully tells him it is none of his business. Well, I think it is sort of Ty's business, since it's his mother and his partner at work who may be getting into a relationship. so it will affect him somehow, but he is being really annoying about asking them over and over and not getting the hint to shut up about it for at least a minute. Meanwhile, some guy runs over to them and tells them that some kid stole a book from his table, and the guy gives them a description. They look for the kid, and hey! What a coincidence! It's Malcolm! Well, I guess Ty didn't get him killed after all! After a chase with thumping house music in the background, Ty finally catches Malcolm in a park. As Ty pats him down, he finds a roll of bills in Malcolm's jacket pocket. Hmmm, I wonder how a poor black child got a fat roll of bills in his pocket? Ty lets him keep the money and takes the book. Sully asks Ty why he let Malcolm walk since he is always "by the book?" Ty tells him he is just solving problems. See, Sully? You did make a difference in a child's life!
Doc and Carlos leave the ER and get back into their ambulance, and Doc tells Carlos that he called the girl who had hurt her ankle with the weights, and Carlos is all, "You called Ankle Girl?" I think the writers of this show have been reading the MBTV recaps and have started using our way to describe characters that don't have official names. Where are our names in the writing credits? So anyway, Carlos says, "Back on the horse. How did it go?" Isn't the saying actually "back in the saddle?" I guess since he is Filipino he doesn't have a tight grasp on American sayings and gets them confused sometimes. Or he's just an idiot. Doc tells him he canceled the date because Ankle Girl looks like his dead wife. He shows Carlos a picture of his dead wife, and Carlos sees no similarities except that they are women and they have faces and hair. Carlos tells Doc that he needs help. What's that other saying, the one about people throwing stones and glass houses?
Kim and Jimmy are at the station and Kim asks Jimmy what kind of school he insisted Joey go to. Jimmy said she wanted Joey to go to Catholic school and his parents would pay the tuition if they sent him to the one he is going to now. More bickering, the school says they are going to hell because they are divorced, blah blah blah Catholic fishcakes, and then there is a call that a building collapsed.
Cop cars and fire trucks are rushing to the building and Ty and Sully are pushing people back. Ambulances arrive, and pieces of the building are falling down all over as some men start stumbling out of the building. One of them is the site foreman, who tells Sully that he is missing eighteen of his men and that there are explosives in there. The building was getting set to be demolished when it started collapsing.
A group of firemen and paramedics go in and they hear people yelling "over here!" and "help!"
Sully is getting annoyed at Bosco and asking him to open up a street to let rescue vehicles in; meanwhile, firemen are carrying out dusty and battered men. The foreman is telling the firemen where they put explosives. Jimmy tells the foreman that some columns have shifted. The foreman tells them that if the central columns have shifted the only thing holding up the building is gravity. I've always learned that gravity pulls things down, so you know this is not good. Jimmy volunteers to go back in and check the columns.
Kim and Bobby and Doc and Carlos are with a woman lying under a slab of concrete, and she can't feel her legs and she is asking over and over again if she is paralyzed. Kim asks her to wiggle her feet. Her feet don't move. Kim doesn't want the woman to get upset, so she asks the woman to wiggle her feet again. A fireman yells that he needs a paramedic. Doc runs to help and finds a guy under lots of debris. The guy's head is cracked open and in a pool of blood. I did not need to see that. Did the set of ER have extra blood lying around, so they thought they'd bring it over to the TW set? So Doc checks the guy and he is dead. What a surprise, since about half the man's blood is on the floor. Another fireman calls for Doc to help, and Doc runs over to find a man whose legs are pinned under a concrete slab. The firemen lift the concrete so Doc can pull the guy out, but when they start to pull the man starts screaming, and Doc realizes that there is a piece of rebar from the concrete in the man's leg, and he has to pull it out before he can slide him out from under the slab. The man screams in pain as Doc pulls out the metal pole from his leg and then gets him out from under the concrete. Again, I did not need to see that, or hear those screams. I had my eyes covered, but my stomach still got upset from hearing that guy scream. Ugh!
Jimmy has a look on his face like he just smelled a fart, and he radios outside that he smells gas and asks the fire chief if the gas has been cut off. The chief tells him they are working on it. As Jimmy is about to tell the chief about the columns, there is an explosion about fifteen feet behind him.
Meridia. Lose weight, get high blood pressure, headaches, and insomnia. And get hooked on the drug, since it is a controlled substance. Who knew dieting would be so much fun!
Jimmy lives through the explosion and radios the chief to tell him he is okay.
Sully and the fire chief are with an engineer. The engineer is telling them that the building could collapse in an hour, or in less than ten minutes. The chief tells Sully to get the bomb squad and to get everyone 1,000 feet away from the building. Sully tells Bosco, Yokas, and Ty to get everyone out of the way, and as they are doing so, a Channel 4 (NBC) news van drives up. Bosco is yelling at them while the newswoman is walking towards the building with the cameraman following, just like Gail Weathers in the Scream films. Bosco gets in the way of her shot and yells at her to leave. While he is yelling at her, he has this smirk on his face which makes him look even more smarmy than he already is.
A team of firefighters and paramedics rush into the building to get people out as quickly as possible, and Carlos and Doc find a guy with a huge open chest wound. Again, did the TW prop people snoop around in the ER prop closet? Because this is absolutely disgusting, and it is about to get worse: Doc shoves his hand down into the man's chest to find where the bleeding is coming from and to try to stop it. Eeeeeeeeeewwwwwww! If I had known this episode was going to be this graphic, I would have had a barf bag to my bed. So anyway, they get other paramedics to help them get the guy on a board while Doc is elbow-deep in the man's chest, and they get him out of the building and into an ambulance. Carlos wonders out loud if all their work was worth it. Gee Carlos, was it worth trying to keep alive that baby you caused to be born three months early? You can't pick and choose who you want to work hard to keep alive and who you'll just let die. I thought Carlos wanted to make a difference. I think shoving your arm into someone's chest to stop bleeding makes a big difference, and I think Carlos should know that. Dumb-ass.
Kim and Bobby are still in the building and Bobby is saying that they should go, but Kim says she hears something. They both hear men yelling.
The police captain finally gets to the scene, and while he is still in the car trying to find a place to park, the Channel 4 woman runs up to him with her microphone and asks him how many people are still in the building. He tells her that since he just got there he doesn't know.
Kim and Bobby find two people down at the bottom of an elevator shaft. They radio that they found people, and Sully answers that if the people can't walk out of the building, then Kim and Bobby have to leave them because the chief wants everybody out. The two men hear this and tell Bobby that they can't leave them. Bobby radios back that he couldn't hear what Sully said. They check out the men; the older man has part of the concrete ceiling on his chest and the younger man's leg and body are pinned to the column. Bobby radios for help.
Diet Dr. Pepper tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper. I just thought you would appreciate knowing that.
So we find out that the older man's name is Frank, and that he is a civil engineer. He tells Kim and Bobby that they won't be able to get the concrete off of them without heavy machinery. The younger man, whose name is Jack, is yelling at Frank that he doesn't know what he is talking about and then they start bickering about the demolition job and then we find out that Jack is Frank's wife's brother.
Doc and other paramedics unload the chest-wound guy from the ambulance and tell Morales about the man's injuries. Doc can finally take his arm out of the man's chest.
Frank gets on the radio with the foreman, and they go over where they are and what columns are damaged. Debris starts falling on them. Frank suggests bringing down a circular saw to cut the slab of concrete on him. Jimmy volunteers to bring down the saw. Kim hears his voice on the radio and is annoyed. Jack asks who Jimmy is and Kim tells him Jimmy is her ex-husband and Jack is all, "Married?" and Kim is all, "Ex!" and Jack is all, "Beautiful woman like you, he must be a moron to let you go!" Because, as you all know, marriage is based on how good-looking someone is. So then Jack starts flirting with her. Maybe that was his way of coping with the fact that he might die -- if he's thinking about sex, he isn't thinking about death. I wonder if he learned his coping skills from Bosco.
Jimmy and the foreman and the fire captain are talking about slabs and columns shifting and equalizing. It is very technical and confusing so I don't need to say any more about it, but basically it comes down to that, if it looks like the building is going to collapse (like it doesn't look like that now?), Jimmy needs to get everyone out. Jimmy runs into the building.
Doc is sitting in the ER, holding his hand. Maybe his old hand injury from beating up Carlos has flared up? Morales comes over, and Doc asks her about the chest-wound guy, and she basically tells him that they got him on the table alive, but it will be hard to keep him alive. She asks about Doc's hand, and he tells her it is cramped up from keeping it in the man's chest. She starts to massage it as Carlos walks up with two cups of coffee. Morales sees him and asks him to get Doc some ibuprofen and then walks away. Carlos looks shocked. Jealous much? Since he's standing by a trash can, he throws away the coffee he got for Doc and looks at him and is all, "What, are you kidding?" No, Carlos, you are kidding if you think you ever had a chance with Morales. Now be a good boy and go find yourself a clue.
Bobby is putting a bag of bandages or something under Frank's head to use as a pillow; Frank asks Bobby if he is married. Bobby tells him he isn't married yet, and Frank tells him that he needs to get married, settle down, and have kids, because that's what it's all about. Unless you have a kid with a man you can't stand but fuck anyway -- right, Kim? ["And what is Frank's last name, anyway -- 'Capra'?" -- Sars] Bobby is looking longingly at Kim while she is helping Jack. Frank tells Bobby that if using the saw doesn't work, they should go, because he doesn't want to be the cause of their deaths. At that moment, Jimmy arrives with the saw.
Sully drives up to the building with Frank's wife and daughter. The Channel 4 newswoman gets in the wife's face and asks her when she found out that her brother and husband were trapped. Bosco holds back the newswoman as Frank's wife walks on, and then the newswoman starts grilling Bosco on the events of the day. Bosco, calm and understanding cop that he is, threatens to slap her. Yokas pulls him away and gives him a piece of advice that is hard for him to understand, which is this: "When someone has a camera in your face, that is the time to not be a jerk."
Jimmy and another fireman get to the men, and Jimmy suggests using airbags instead of the saw. Frank tells him that if the slab shifts while they are inflating the bags, the slab could come down full force on one of them. Jimmy asks which one of them, and Frank is all, "Does it matter?" Jimmy has a look on his face like, "D'oh! You're right." Frank's wife gets on one of the radios and tells Frank that she and her daughter love him. Funny, she didn't say anything about her brother down there. Jimmy wants Kim and Bobby to leave, but they tell him they are staying, and they move away so Jimmy can start sawing away at the concrete slab. As he is using the saw, the slab shifts and part of it falls on Jack's leg, and he starts screaming in pain. They notice that the column shifted and tell the captain, and he tells them to get out.
Hewlett Packard is looking for child inventors to work for them. What ever happened to child labor laws? And I love the Honda commercial with the Weimeraners. It makes me want to go out and get a dog, not a car.
Jack is getting a big dose of morphine to ease the pain. Franks tells them they should go, but Kim tells him, "Not a chance." Jimmy decides to try the airbags and starts to put them in place. Bobby goes to Kim and suggests that she leave because if anything should happen to her and Jimmy, Joey would lose both his parents. Jack asks her to stay, and she promises Jack she will. You know, she keeps on talking about taking responsibility for her child and how he is the most important part of her life, yet the minute some guy starts flirting with her, she is willing to orphan her child. Frank tells Jimmy that he really doesn't want to use the airbags, because the way the slab is listing, the slab will fall directly on Jack. Jack is not pleased about this.
Sully and Ty walk over to Frank's wife, who is holding her daughter; they tell her that they can only save Frank. She starts to cry and Ty takes the daughter to look at the fire truck. Sully looks sad.
Kim offers Jack more morphine. Frank offers to stay, but Jack tells Frank that he should go since he has a kid, and everyone thinks he is a screw-up and would think worse of him if he caused Frank's death. Jack asks if they can get a video camera because he has a daughter he abandoned and he wants to say goodbye to her. (Maybe he should say "hello" to her first?) Man, this guy sure sounds like a winner. No wonder Kim is attracted to him. Kim radios outside to see if they can get a camera.
Bosco and Yokas go to the Channel 4 news van, and for some reason, it is the ONLY news van at the scene. Not that there are any other TV. stations in the city with news programs or anything. Oh wait, there are. So they ask if they can use a video camera. The newswoman insists on going into the building with them and showing the tape on her newscast and Bosco gets all pissy with her, so she gets all pissy with him and won't let them use the camera. Yokas tells Bosco to leave, and then she asks the newswoman to act human about the situation. They come to a compromise: she'll give them the camera and they'll all look at the tape together, and if the newswoman likes it she can air it on her newscast three days later.
Bobby starts recording Jack. Jack apologizes to Steph (I'm assuming that's the girl he knocked up) for abandoning her and Kaitlin, their daughter, and that he had so much love in his heart for them but couldn't tell them. After he is finishing recording, he asks for the shot of morphine. Frank tells him he is sorry. Jack asks if he can make his last confession to Kim since there isn't a priest around. So he confesses that he is a bad person and hurt many people, and he abandoned his daughter and stole from his sister and parents, and he asks for forgiveness. Kim is thinking that she's really going to be missing out on a great boyfriend if this guy dies. He then thanks Kim for staying. Jimmy starts the air bags, and debris starts falling on them. Bobby asks Frank what happened, and he told them the slab shifted.
Jimmy, the other firefighter, and Bobby are taking someone out of the building on a board, and Kim is behind them. People are applauding, and you can see that they have Jack. Frank's wife asks where Frank is, and Kim looks at her sadly and tells her she is sorry. Franks wife breaks down, and Kim holds her. This scene is really, really sad, and my eyes are welling up with tears just from thinking about it and writing this.
In the news van, everyone is looking at a video of Frank telling his wife he is sorry and he loves her and their daughter, and how grateful he was to have her in his life. His wife, daughter, and Kim are crying, and Kim runs off.
Kim is at a church, and a priest comes up to her to tell her that the church is closing. She tells him she is praying for someone who just died, and then asks the priest if it is true that since she is divorced she will go to hell. He tells her it isn't true, and then she asks him where we go when we die. He tells her we go to God. Fade to black.